Dramatic footage has captured the moment an Israeli stealth fighter shot down an Iranian jet in a first-of-its-kind combat strike on Wednesday.
Footage released by the Israeli Defense Forces on Thursday showed the Israeli F-35 jet focusing in on its target – a Russian-made Iranian Yak-130 – over Tehran before the air-to-air kill.
A streak of light can be seen blazing across the screen as the enemy plane comes down.
“Target down. The target is down. Continue for strike,” Israeli forces say in the video, which is played to the “Star Wars” theme tune.
It was the first shootdown in history of a manned fighter aircraft by an F-35 ‘Adir’ fighter jet,” the IDF said, using the jet’s Hebrew name, which translates to “Mighty One.”
The last time an Israeli fighter jet shot down another aircraft in manned air-to-air combat was more than 40 years ago, when an IAF F-15 downed two Syrian MiG-23 fighters on Nov. 24, 1985, during the “War of the Camps” in Lebanon, the Times of Israel reported.
